


Unfinished football fic (mostly Stevie/Xabi)

by uniqlos



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniqlos/pseuds/uniqlos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bunch of unfinished fic from my football fandom years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. stevie/xabi - forced outing

Their very first promise to each other was: football comes first.

 

This promise never changed, which now Xabi thinks is probably a stupid decision: you’re with the same guy for five years, two year into that relationship everyone finds out you’re together, you practically adopt his child who calls you Papa, you take vacations together, move in the same house, you and he are practically _married._

But football comes first.

 

 

How everyone finds out is like this:

 

Alex knows, much earlier than everyone else. She finds out a year earlier. She doesn’t react in the raging, suicidal way everyone thought she did, she faced Stevie head on, and trembling, asked if he was going to take Lily away from her (later she says it’s because that’s how it always happened on the soaps).

 

Stevie says, “of course not,” and then Alex says, “ok” and then they are silent but then she starts to cry. He holds her, she lets him, and it’s really the most mature way one can end a relationship. Stevie promises to take care of her, and Alex promises not to tell anybody about what she knows.

 

She keeps that promise for one year, and it’s a good, blissful year. Alex and Stevie play happy families and for the most part they are content (Stevie gets his beard, Alex has security and a baby that loves her). She and Xabi even become friendly, they talk about Stevie when they think he isn’t listening.

 

But she’s the only one who knows, save for maybe Carra or Pepe or a few perceptive others on the team. Rafa couldn’t give a fuck unless it was affecting their game, and it wasn’t, in fact they played amazingly.

 

So it was two years, all in all of bliss, when finally the secret is let out of the bag. It’s a vacation in New York City. Stevie and Xabi hadn’t expected anyone to care about them in the US, they aren’t in the normal football hotspots. Just downtown New York, sitting together in an outdoor patio of the restaurant. With them is Lilly, and trying to feed her is Alex. Stevie and Xabi sit next to each other, legs tangled together, hands twined under the table.

 

The next day _The Sun_ splashes out the pictures on their front page.

 

Naturally, it’s a madhouse, people clamoring to talk to him. Stevie’s father (surprisingly, it’s less about his son’s predilictions, more about said son’s predelictions ending up on the cover of this paper), Xabi’s father (quiet) and mother (wants to meet her practically grandchild), their agents, Rafa, Carra, more newspapers, The BBC, and surprisingly, _Good Morning America._

They land in Liverpool, it’s kind of awful, the flashing lightbulbs and Lilly stuffing her face down Stevie’s sweater. Their relaxing vacation is cut short, for awhile Xabi ponders moving out, moving back to Spain and then Lily joins him in the couch he’s taken to sleeping to and squeezes him so tightly, her tiny body determined to hold on to him (she doesn’t let go until next morning and Xabi has to promise her he isn’t leaving. That determined look on her face is only too familiar to him).

 

Finally he and Stevie talk and it

 


	2. stevie/xabi - angsty angst angst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think I wrote this the year Xabi left. That bit about going to Austria and Cesc Fabregas paying him back was from a fic I had posted back then, about Stevie going to Austria (during Euro 2008, which England hadn't qualified for) to beg Xabi to stay and the entire Spain team decided to bet about Xabi staying or not lol. Cesc was the only super hopeful wide eyed kid who believed in ~true love~ and said that Xabi would stay (Pepe and Fernando bet against Stevie!) and in the end, obviously Xabi stayed so Cesc won the bet lol. This was back when fandom's interpretation of Cesc was that he was a dumb kid who liked doughnuts and watching "Desperate Housewives" lol aka before the douchebag in him showed up.

The season has only just ended and Dr. Waller has already supplied him with a lifetime set of anti-anxiety medication.

 

Carra shakes his head at him as they meet up his place, but Stevie pops a pill in, uncaring of the vice-captain’s disapproval. Outside he can hear his daughters shrieking as Carra’s kid runs after them, they’re playing tag or something, but Stevie doesn’t really know.

 

The little girl sitting on his lap, Mia, seems to have decided that she has a crush on Stevie. He should be disturbed, but Carra rolled his eyes as he plopped her on his lap, told him to shut up and go with it.

 

Now she’s peering at the bottle, trying to read the long, complicated words, “Medafale-“

 

“Does he know you’re back on the pills?” asks Carra carefully, not looking at him, “I thought he got you to stop.”

 

“Yeah, well I thought I got him to stop smoking,” Stevie grounds out. “Guess what, I found a box of cigarettes in his drawers.”

 

“What were you doing there, what about his wife? And the kid?”

 

“He gave me a key, and the family’s in Spain.” A pause, “they’re coming back though.”

 

Carra takes a swig of his coke-filled-rum (it doesn’t do to drink in front of his daughter). “Are they really?”

 

Stevie takes a long, measured look at him before putting Mia down and standing up, calling for his children.

 

“We’re leaving. Say goodbye.”

 

 

Three days later Carra’s still calling and he isn’t answering. Alex starts taking the children out, everywhere, trying to avoid being at home when he’s in one of his moods. He knows she loves it when it’s the summer, and he can be there for her and the girls, but he also knows she starts to hate it by the second week, when he’s bored and restless and there’s no set routine to their lives. He feels guilty, because he realizes his daughters will grow up loving him more when he’s away from them.

 

Even guiltier still, in this mood he’s in, he finds he really doesn’t care, because pretty soon nothing will start to matter.

 

He hates what this is. What this is is he slipping, making the same mistakes he promised he never would, and that is: never place all your hopes and happiness on the game of football, and particularly the people you play it with.

 

After Danny and Michael left, he promised he’d never do it again. And then lo and behold, there was Xabi and all those promises were shattered, and like an idiot he does it all over again. Five years, it was a good run, right?

 

He could justify going to Austria last year. And in retrospect, it worked: Xabi ended up staying, Cesc Fabregas paid him back, the rest of the Spanish Liverpool squad swooned (in so much as Pepe could swoon) at the sight of him when the transfer window ended and Xabi was still there, and they were second in the season and it was all sorts of amazing.

 

He can’t do that now though, because South Africa is too far away, and doing it was one more step in breaking the façade of: Steven Gerrard is a determined, battle-hardened captain rather than a lovesick one who likes to chase lost causes across continents.

 

So he doesn’t. But he figures that the next best thing is calling Xabi in the middle of the night (and only then, they never talk in the morning) and breathing down the phone like a murder suspect.

 

Xabi knows of course, who it is, and he lets him go on. Stevie likes to think it’s because he understands why Stevie does it, but realistically it’s probably because he’s too tired after training and games to force Stevie away from the phone, since Xabi knows Stevie will call again and again and not say anything when he picks up.

 

Realistically, too, Stevie knows this could probably just hasten Xabi’s desire to leave. He knows every call could push Xabi to call his agent and tell the agent to request for a transfer “because the Captain of Liverpool has gone mad and developed a complex and needs to be locked away, and if that won’t happen then I fear for my life so I need to leave.”

 

But. He needs to hear Xabi on the other line, reassure himself that Xabi needs this as much as he does, so he breaths on, deeply, and Xabi breathes back too as they fall asleep on the other line together, and the next month Stevie will receive a phone bill so high, but this is all worth it.

 

Sometimes Stevie puts the phone on his chest so Xabi can hear his heart. yours, yours, yours, it goes and sometimes it says, please, please, please, and sometimes it beats so fast that Xabi asks, murmuring, “Are you on those pills again? You know I hate that.”

 

stay, stay, stay.

 

 

Spain’s still in the competition, a few weeks later, and Stevie and Xabi still continue their phone…thing, and he and Carra are talking again (thanks to Mia, who begged and begged to see Stevie), but what happened yet is the final announcement on Xabi’s future.

 

Stevie knows he won’t, because it isn’t professional (and it was the same excuse he used when he almost went to Chelsea, the first time), but it doesn’t stop him from making plans about what will happen if Xabi does stay.

 

He has a list, and it goes like this,

 

What Steven Gerrard will do if Xabi Alonso decides to stay

 

  1. I will never run to Fernando Torres first, after I score the first goal. If Fernando scores, and if I set him up, then I will. But if it’s me, I will consciously seek out Xabi first. If that doesn’t work, then anyone else near me is ok. JUST NOT FERNANDO.
  2. I will stop talking about Fernando all the time in interviews. I have ten other teammates too, who all deserve my praise.
  3. I will talk about Fernando about the above.
  4. I will stop making fun of Sushi Night/Movie Night/Xabi’s Reading Night, and will actively endeavor to join in on them.
  5. I will stop taking him for granted.



 

 

It goes up to 15, and he has half a mind to read it to Xabi, and then he realizes Xabi would just rather him do all those things to prove it to him, instead of keeping it in words. And Stevie once would have thought that he would have time to prove those promises, and yet, he doesn’t.

 

They’re running out of time.

 

 

In those five days Stevie starts combing through the internet, reading every interview he can get his hands on, in English and then trying to read the mangled Spanish-to-English translations on Google.

 

When he reads a Spanish radio interview transcript, Xabi is asked, “Will you be happy to stay in Liverpool this season?” and then,

 

“Well, I can’t answer that.”

 

It’s at this moment that Stevie realizes he has start being more pragmatic 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then Xabi really left and I stopped writing fic about them because it was THE WORST THING EVER.


	3. stevie/xabi - xabi leaving, stevie angst (there is a theme)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LOTS OF SADNESS.

On the day Xabi Alonso flies into Madrid, the sky in Merseyside is overcast and Steven Gerrard turns up to training earlier than everyone else.

 

The only people at Melwood is the security guard manning the gates of the entrance (who averts his eyes the minute Stevie drives up the path) and then the receptionist in the front desk (who averts her eyes even further as he walks past).

 

This is fine with him; avoiding people in his time of trouble is of second nature to him, so much so that he barely notices, nor does he care, when people do the same to him.

 

When he left his house that morning, he knew it was going to rain. The sun was hidden beneath the clouds, vaguely threatening, and as he changes to his training clothes he can hear the ominous rumble of the thunder. By the time he gets to the pitch, to begin his laps a tiny spatter of rain falls liberally on the pitch.

 

This is fine, he tells himself as he starts running, feet bouncing up and down the soaked grass. The rain hides many things.

 

Not the least the wetness in his eyes he will never admit to having.

 

 

By contrast, Madrid is sunny, the heat relentless as it falls, its rays dappled over every hard surface. If Merseyside is in mourning for losing an adopted sun, Madrid is ecstatic at the prospect of gaining a new one.

 

(and yet, Xabi is uncomfortable with the notion of becoming Madrid’s son, because being Basque had wired him to be wary of the capital city, and its something he’ll never really lose.)

 

He worries about many things, like, the location he is currently headed to (he isn’t sure – is it the hotel or the hospital? He lost it, somewhere between the rapid-fire Spanish of the man waiting for him at the airport and then amidst the frenzied shouting of over-excited reporters as he was dragged to his car), and then the near future, how soon he’ll be able to find a permanent place to stay (he’d prefer it to be in the city, maybe near theRetiro Park, so Jon has a permanent garden outside the walls), when Nagore and Jon will be able to join him (the guilt of leaving her to pack up everything in Liverpool gnaws at him), a school for Jon, Nagore needs a job, how is he going to play in a team packed with stars, the daily press intrusion is much worse here than back at home–

 

  Home.. Somehow, improbably, he’d started to refer to Liverpool as his home. He hadn’t noticed, had seamlessly slipped into it like it was only right to do so, and hadn’t questioned it.

 

There are things he worries about at home too, things that have nothing to do with his wife or his son, and they are all to do with someone who right now is probably pounding on the wet grass, someone who turned up extra early at training so his teammates wouldn’t be able to talk to him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no idea how this was supposed to end. just presume a lot of tears i guess.


	4. stevie/xabi - westlife au lmao

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BAD IDEAS ABOUND HERE: in which xabi is a westlife member and stevie is still stevie and they're kind of like cheryl and cashley lol. also no kian because i hate him.

Stevie/Xabi AU

-       X. is a member of Westlife haha.

-       S. and X are like the gay version of Cheryl and Ashley

-       Kian not in WL (LOL).

-       Relationship is public

-       S. cheats on X (lol oh hayyyyy Cashley v.2)

 

 

When Xabi Alonso finally comes out to his bandmates, it wasn’t exactly his ideal time.

 

He isn’t forced into it, far from that: he’s already long accepted that he likes the opposite of the fairer sex, and he’s pretty much out to his closest friends and family back in Spain (his mom never stops badgering him to bring a boy home). All that was left was telling the boys in the perfect, non-awkward way he was planning.

 

And then Mark beat him to it.

 

Here’s the thing: the _entire_ band had their suspicions about Mark. They would be at a party and pretty girls from other bands would milling about and all Mark had eyes for was this Geordie boy from another band, V, who Xabi was sure had naked pictures floating around the internet (he was right). They all sort of knew what was going on, but it wasn’t their business so until Mark was ready to talk his sexuality was _persona non grata_ in the band.

 

But no one thought about it with Xabi. He’d had a few girlfriends here and there during the band’s lifespan, no one really serious, just a few dates enough to keep suspicion away from him. And it genuinely wasn’t an angst-fest, like they all found out it was for Mark: for Xabi, he was perfectly happy to like girls until he had his first kiss (drunk) with a member of the opposite sex, and it pretty much was perfect.

 

So when they were all hanging out at Mark’s place in London,  Xabi thought it the perfect time to tell them: he’d been in the band long enough so no one was going to kick him out, and it was one of those rare times when they were all alone together (no tour guide, publicists, Louis barking orders), so it was the kind of private setting he wanted.

 

“I’m gay,” said Mark.

 

Which, _really_ , thought Xabi. _The nerve of him_!

 

“Dude,” Nicky said carefully, “It’s fine. We’re really happy you trust us enough to tell us though.”

 

“Yeah,” Shane replied, “even if we did kind of figure it out ourselves.”

 

They all laughed, except Xabi.

 

“So, um,” Nicky said awkwardly, when it became obvious Xabi wasn’t going to say anything. “Xabi…”

 

“Um, I’m gay too.”

 

“WHAT!?”

 

 

After that, there was a whole load of explanations, about how Xabi didn’t really know anything was different about him until he had that first drunken kiss, and that’s why he genuinely never dropped any hints like Mark did, and then how he was planning to tell all of them before Mark did it, and no, they didn’t plan this together, and “No, Nicky, there’s no way I’m ever hooking up with Mark,” and then plans were had to let Louis know, and set up a way this could be announced to the press if they were ever ready.

 

Eventually it was decided: because Mark had known for longer (and had blurted it out at least 15 seconds before Xabi had a chance to), and because he was already kind of seeing someone on the side (Geordie from V, Kevin something), then if he was ready to come out publicly, he’d come out first, complete with an interview and the allowance of the expected amount of fuss that comes with a celebrity coming out of the closet.

 

For Xabi, they all decided a quiet coming out was in order when _he_ decided he wanted to come out (giving him an interview would be redundant, and them doing it the same time would be corny would give everyone else the misconception that they were seeing each other). He was fine with that, it was more his style, and besides, he wasn’t seeing anyone just yet anyway.

 

And Mark could get the fuss, he was seeing someone marginally famous. Xabi didn’t ever think he’d want someone in the same job or even someone on the same level of fame: too much work, too much ego involved. Let him fall for some cute Spanish boy with a normal life. Maybe even an Irish one to please the boys.

 

Of course these things never turn out the way you expect.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol idek.


	5. stevie/xabi - watchmen au lol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BAD IDEAS PART 2: a watchmen au. i had just watched the movie. haha.

_the liverbirds - we are all of us living in the shadow of anfield_

_Watchmen_ -verse with LFC. Players keep their human personalities, and switch into costumes if they want. Stevie can control his powers.

 

Characters:

**The Liverbirds**

 

 **Steven Gerrard** (Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan) – Dr. Anfield. Stevie’s “accident” is Hillsborough, which he attended with his ten year-old cousin, and Michael Owen (or Danny Murphy? Anyway, both would be the Janey Slater character). He glows red (but this is controllable, on the football pitch he is human – players and fans would crap their pants if the Scouse version of Dr. Manhattan played for Liverpool). Instead of going to Mars, he goes back to the Bluebell estate (possibly the place where he injured his toe in that flat field?). He is an extraordinary player, but unlike Dr. Manhattan being the “lynchpin of the US defense strategy” maybe Stevie just has enormous love in him, love that can end the ~violence~ in the streets of Liverpool?

 

 **Xabi Alonso** (Daniel Dreiberg/Nite Owl II and maybe meld with Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre?) – Iógel. Almost made Xabi the Veidt character, and then realized no way Veidt would let himself grow a ginger beard, haha. Player with a lot of integrity, intelligence, patience. Might meld with LJ/SSII, so has a relationship with Stevie. Once a very passionate relationship, now kind of getting dry but Xabi is fiercely loyal to Stevie, very protective, knows that Stevie has problems dealing with the real world.

 

 **Jamie Carragher** (Walter Kovacs/Rorschach) – Redshirt. Duh. Exactly the same. Very steadfast in morals. But is sometimes afflicted with having been an Everton fan. Kind of insane.”Redshirt’s Journal…”

 

 **Fernando Torres** (Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias) – Hippolyte (I was reading _War and Peace_ , ok). IDK how to make it believable that Fernando is the smartest man in the world, haha. Basically, stops Liverpool and Manchester from going into war by unethical means (no mercy on the pitch? Scares all the other teams into submission behind the scenes) and his end point is to make Atletico Madrid be stronger. Possibly homosexual? Must remember to investigate later ;). Totally in love with Stevie.

 

 **Pepe Reina** (IDK, Daniel Dreiberg/Nite Owl II? And leave LJ/SSII to Xabi. Or maybe be The Commedian Character?) If Pepe becomes DD/NOII, he will not chase after Xabi, they’ll just be BFFs.

 

 **Robbie Fowler** (Edward Blake/The Commedian) – The Sniffer (LOL might change). Transferred to Australia, actually dead. Flashbacks.

**Everton**

Gangs

Tim Cahill or Duncan Edwards – Moloch?

 

 **Manchester Utd** -  Soviets.

 

**Minutemen**

Not so sure

 

 

**Real Life events**

Hillsborough

Istanbul

This season

 

Add more!

 

ACTUAL FIC:

 _Redshirt’s Journal._ (writing about Chelsea)

_March 14, 2009_

_A win. A win against a once great enemy, now reduced to pitiful circumstance: their men are aged and bloated, and only money and corruption keeps them afloat._

_None of them would walk into my team. Spoiled hedonists, seeking pleasure at their nightclubs. And at what price? We are stronger now, faster, we play with belief._

_Their Russian benefactor is tired of them. They will no longer be at the top. In fact, they haven’t been so in months._

_All of them, aged and bloated, with their scrupulous hands in the dirty money, the Englishmen, the Portuguese, the German…will look up and shout “Save us!”…_

_And I’ll look down and whisper “no.”_

 

“Reports are coming out from Anfield that Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez has agreed to sell Robbie Fowler to (get team name) Australia. We’ll have more updates for you on…”

 

Xabi Alonso sighed. He looked down on the sleeping form of the glowing red man next to him, wanting to touch but feeling so far away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LORDT.


	6. stevie/nick jonas - au in which nick is a football player??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BAD IDEAS PART 3: um. i'm not sure how old nick was when i wrote this (17-18?) but i aged him up, otherwise how creepy.
> 
> so anyway instead of being in a band, he's a soccer player.

Nick knows how much of a good agent Garbo is, it’s why he’s managed to survive in a world where contracts are thrust in his face and girls want him for the easy lay and the boys secretly laugh because “soccer is a pussy sport and you’re not actually famous.”

 

In fact it’s why he has such a great deal with the Houston Dynamos, why ADIDAS loves his face enough to plaster all over the city, and why he’s able to get away with pretty much everything.

 

He trusts Garbo: with the opportunity finding, the decision making, everything you’re supposed to trust your agent with, Garbo’s done seamlessly.

 

He just isn’t sure what to say when Garbo says he’s found him the opportunity to play for Liverpool Football Club and that he needs to decided right now if he wants to go or not.

 

“Say that again, Garbo,” he says uncomprehendingly. “I don’t think I heard you when the wheels of bullshit started turning the first time.”

 

Garbo sighs patiently. “Nicholas,” he says warningly. “I have just received  a phone call from a man called Eduardo Maca. He says he is Liverpool’s Chief Scout.”

 

“Really?” Nick asks, “You verified it? There’s actually a man called Eduardo Maca who works for the club, and his position is an actual position? Because, you know, he could be having me on…”

 

“Nic-“

 

“Extorting me for money, bringing me over there, only for me to realize he didn’t actually mean Liverpool as in _the_ Liverpool, but Liverpool, Bratislava or something.”

 

“ _NICK.”_ Garbo rubs his face. “I checked. His picture is on the website and everything.”

 

“How do you know that’s actually him?”

 

“I called my friend Foster, he verified it. And this is FOSTER GILETT, Nick, so he knows what he’s talking about. And he knows about you, too. Now don’t interrupt anymore.”

 

So on went the sordid (not really) tale about how Fernando Torres got himself injured during their Christmas match and now has to miss the rest of the season, and then the scramble for a new striker took place because no one else in the club was good enough, and how every other option was too expensive, too old, to bratty, too famous that the opponents knew everything about them…and on and on went the list which Nick presumed had to have had some logic enough to consider him a suitable alternative for Fernando fucking Torres.

 

“So, why me?” he asks, “because I’m pretty sure there are more people capable than me.”

“You’re going to go for cheap, is the first reason, really.” Garbo answers. “You’re new, you’ll be thankful for the opportunity, you could be a PR success story.”

 

Nick thinks that’s slightly unfair: he isn’t a bad player. Houston’s soccer loving population loves him, he’s due for a call to the USMNT, his life is good. He’s not exactly dirt cheap, isn’t he?

 

“I know what you’re thinking, Nicholas, and stop,” Garbo retorts. “You’re new, so you won’t command David Beckham figures. This is only on loan because they don’t want Fernando coming back all irritated at the new kid. They just want a quick solution, enough for cover, and having someone like you will be as minimal fuss as possible.”

 

Expendable, is what he is, especially to Liverpool Garbo shouldn’t have to waste so many words trying to explain without hurting his feelings.

 

In any case it’s an adventure, and besides Houston was getting too stifling.

 

“Ok fine, I’ll do it,” he says, hoping he doesn’t regret this. “Where do I sign, what do I do?”

 

“I’ll take care of everything,” Garbo replies. “You leave the details to me.”

 

Yup, he trusts Garbo. Of course he does, why wouldn’t he.

 

 

The next logical step is calling his mother and the rest of the family in New Jersey and telling them that he has decided to move an entire ocean away from them.

 

“NICHOLAS JERRY JONAS YOU DID NOT AGREE TO THIS.” Comes the thundering voice down the phone. As the good boy in a family with a ratio of 5 males to 1 female, he had forgotten the tone his mother used on all of them (dad, brothers, him) for being naughty.

 

If “naughty” could be compared to telling your mother you were going to live in another continent in a few weeks, that is.

 

It’s bad enough that he moved almost halfway across the country. He was the baby, (even if he actually wasn’t, because that was Frankie but their mother tended not to care about the child who was there vs. the child far away. There was the diabetes too, and then Nick’s propensity for not recognizing that being an athlete meant he was a minor celebrity so it shouldn’t be a surprise that TMZ could be so stalk-happy on him).

 

Mama Jonas just tended to worry most about her third child the most.

 

See, none of them thought he would even be a professional in the first place. He was at college, in Columbia slaving away on pre-law yet finding the time to play on the school team and then…he was scouted.

 

And for the first time he decided to walk away from the career path he had decided as a 12 year old (High School valedictorian, MVP of the soccer team, pre-law at an Ivy, actual law school at Harvard – only Harvard would do) and be spontaneous. Move away to Houston, try out the professional soccer, do it for two years, come back for Harvard…none of them thought it would be a success, and he can remember Kevin, his oldest brother, writing him out a check incase things didn’t work out. But they did.

 

He was adored in Houston, seriously giving thought to putting Harvard off for a few years and then this offer came, and maybe Harvard could be a little more patient, right? And if they weren’t, well, Liverpool was in England and had Oxford or Cambridge, right?

 

“Nick! Are you really going to England!?” asks Joe, another brother who had grabbed the phone.

 

“Um, yeah,” he answers, “Looks like it.”

 

“Mom is so freaking out, dude. She’s ready to storm over there and drag you back and drug Garbo in the process.”

 

“Joe, give the phone back.”

 

“NICHOLAS DO NOT GO TO ENGLAND,” she screeches at him. “YOU HAVE A DELICATE STOMACH. REMEMBER THE JELLIED EELS?”

 

Oh. The jellied eels. They had a family trip to England, cut short because they realized Nick couldn’t handle English food, English food handled him.

 

“Mom, “ he says as nice as he can, “I’m pretty sure the club isn’t going to force jellied eels down my throat. They’d require more nutrition than that.”

 

“Well what about Harvard?” she asks, having calmed down enough, “You can’t keep deferring them, admissions are competitive and sooner or later you’re going to piss them off and they’ll leave you in the lurch just like this football club probably will and you’ll starve and your blood sugar will drop and…”

 

Times like these are why Nick remembers going to college a state away from New Jersey (instead of Princeton like his mother wanted) and then a team with a number of states _in between_. He liked his freedom, trusted his decision making skills and lived better alone, away from the coddling and the praising of the holy lord Jesus…

 

He could do this.

And so he did.

 

 

The Dynamos aren’t very happy with his decision though, although they are satiated with the fact that it’s a loan, and Nick suspects a very nice packaged delivered from Messrs. Hicks & Gilett softened the blow. His teammates are supportive, and the fans are too, but they don’t know yet which team he’s off to because they have to wait for the transfer window to open before any decisions are publicly announced and then contracts are signed and he hears, before he’s paraded on the Anfield turf (but Garbo warns that it might not happen because he’s only on loan). Still, he’s excited.

 

It’s three days before he leaves for Liverpool, his apartment in Houston all packed up and he’s at his parent’s place in New Jersey at his mother’s insistence when news breaks that Liverpool’s temporary replacement for Fernando Torres, last season’s top-scorer and the other half of the best on-pitch partnership, is “20-something Nick Jonas from the Houston Dynamos who is good, yeah, but MLS good, not Premier league standard.” (according to the radio call-ins).

 

There’s suddenly more blistering recriminations from the blogs, and the fan forums, which he really shouldn’t be checking but his curiosity forces him to, anyway. Garbo is on the phone (in New Jersey, because he’s going to Liverpool too, for the contract) immediately fielding requests for interviews from oversees English media, and surprisingly, the Americans want in, too.

 

“You can be their poster boy,” he says, his mouth full of Mama Jonas’ chicken, “because everyone loves a good success story.”

 

The comments horrify his mother though. More than once he has to stop her from calling in and giving these idiots a piece of her mind (“Why Nicholas, I read about one of your teammates and this Jamie Carragher, his dad did the same thing!” “Because it’s _Jamie Carragher_ , mom. Only the vice-captain of the club, and if you did it no one would ever talk to me!”) and then they finally settled for her signing up for some internet forum called _RAWK_ to get her frustrations out (“Nick Jonas is not a ball hog and he does not dive, _excuse me_!”)

 

 

The whole time Nick had been preparing to go he had never even thought of how he’d be received there. He’d thought maybe they wouldn’t know him so they’d have no opinion and just let him play but he realizes now that this is Liverpool, everything everyone does is something to be shoved under a microscope and analyzed to death. It’s just that with him they couldn’t analyze him yet so they had to get information on from Houston.

 

And his teammates, he doesn’t even know about what they’d do. He’s a boy with a ball who’s pretty good at soccer (and God, now he would have to force himself to call it something else) and so of course he admires certain players, one of them Steven Gerrard.

 

And with Stevie (or Steven or Sir or Mr. Gerrard, whatever he wants to be called), Nick isn’t even sure what part it is that he admires the most: is it the way he plays the game, his never-ending storages of belief, how he lives his life with such integrity, the fact that his personal history reads like _The Hero with a Thousand Faces_?

 

Nick isn’t actually sure, and sometimes he suspects it has more to do with pure, uncapped love. Which worries him a little, he can’t be getting a boner in his captain’s presence.

 

 

 

When he and Garbo arrive, he’s thankful the club sent a representative to pick them up. Not so thankfully this representative is a guy who could be a dead-ringer for a Mormon missionary (shorts-leeves-shirt-tie-khakis) holding a dry-erase board saying ‘Mr. Nicholas Jones and Mr. Gerbatsky’ (“ _gerbatsky?_ Really?” asks his agent in disbelief) and at this point Nick realizes this is how the club greets the players they don’t really wan. It’s disenheartening but at least the rest of his family isn’t here to see it, especially his mother.

 

“Hey lad,” says short-sleeves-shirt-tie-khakis. “Are ye Nicholas Jones? The club sent us to get yer.”

 

“Um, it’s Jonas,” and then he pauses, “wait, have they spelt my name wrong on the jersey?” he asked worriedly.

 

“We call it kit here, son,” answers short-sleeves-shirt-tie-khakis gravely, “that’s one of the few things you’ll learn about being here.”

 

It’s actually, he finds out, one of the easiest.

 

 

Signing the contract itself isn’t that bad. Rafa Benitez isn’t there though, and short-sleeves-shirt-tie-khakis assures him that he normally isn’t there for loan deals, and that no, Nick is not being shafted.

 

Considering the amount of fuss his immanent arrival caused in the blogs and forums he’s a little surprised that there isn’t a press conference though. Maybe he had just gotten used to everyone loving the pants off of him in Houston and the United Sates, that arriving in a place where no one really cares about him is a bit disconcerting.

 

His apartment is quite nice; spacious, on the Albert Docks providing him a good view of both the river and the city. Even in Houston he had loved living in the thick of things, to walk around town unbothered by fans (Garbo warns it will be different, “This is England, Nick: they treat their soccer seriously here.”), to visit museums, eat in his favorite restaurants. It’s his favorite kind of life.

 

When the doorman helps bring his stuff up (complete with what they mailed over weeks ago), he told him the history of the place, who had lived here before: “Xabi Alonso, before he had buggered off to Barcelona,” said the doorman, with a look of passing sadness. “The whole city _cried_ when he left, and if yer thought the Captain had a long face his face became _longer_. Figures, considering they were such good friends, I always buzzed ‘im in here at all sorts of weird times a day…”

 

Nick isn’t sure if that leery face is insinuating something here. It doesn’t do for doormen to be gossiping about their former football player employees, right?

 

Right?

 

 

It’s a few days later at his first training session when Nick realizes how hopelessly unmatched he is compared to everyone on the team. They _expected_ him to replace Fernando Torres?

 

It’s bad enough he was nearly late to training: no car yet, so after asking the doorman for directions to Melwood, he hopped on the bus he thought would bring him closest to the training center. Five minutes in, he realized something was wrong when they he saw the green signs outside pointing to Manchester.

 

Finally, after having gotten on a taxi and paying an exorbitant fee for the ride, he’s outside Melwood, where the guards won’t let him in. “You’re a player?” asked the guard skeptically. “How can you be one, the players come in their cars. No one walks, or takes a taxi.”

 

“What, even the young players with no cars?” somehow, he finds this hard to believe: Soccer might pay a lot in the UK, but surely not everyone goes to work on a Ferrari.

 

“They carpool,” answers the stubborn guard. “Here, have a look at the cars.” He moves aside to let Nick peek at the vehicles, and wow: BMWs, Royces, Bentlys, Aston Martins…it’s a car lover’s paradise (he can’t wait to call Joe and tell him all about it). So yeah, everyone goes to work on a Ferrari.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao.


End file.
